Question

Now watch the video that follows about the receiving function within an Amazon warehouse. Without worrying yet about specifics from future chapters or the purchase-to-pay business process at all, describe your general observations about the use of human assistance vs. robotic assistance in receiving and shipping and make general conclusions about the types of tasks in each area that are best suited for robots vs. humans. Does the receiving process look like an area that could ever "go fully robotic"? Why or why not?

Answer 1

1) Nissa Scott started working at the cavernous Amazon warehouse in southern New Jersey late last year, stacking plastic bins the size of small ottomans. It was not, she says, the most stimulating activity. And lifting the bins, which often weigh 25 pounds each, was also tiring over 10-hour shifts.

2) Her new job at Amazon is to babysit several robots at a time, troubleshooting them when necessary and making sure they have bins to load. On a recent afternoon, a claw at end of the arm grabbed a bin off a conveyor belt and stacked it on another bin, forming neat columns on wooden pallets surrounding the robot. It was the first time Amazon had shown the arm, the latest generation of robots in use at its warehouses, to a reporter.

3) Perhaps no company embodies the anxieties and hopes around automation better than Amazon. Many people, including President Trump, blame the company for destroying traditional retail jobs by enticing people to shop online. At the same time, the company’s eye-popping growth has turned it into a hiring machine, with an unquenchable need for entry-level warehouse workers to satisfy customer orders.

4) To hear John Santa gate tell it, in the not-too-distant future we’ll see warehouse dock workers wearing robotic exoskeleton suits and lifting 200-pound boxes in Iron man- esque fashion with no other assistance.

5) Complicating the equation even more, Amazon is also on the forefront of automation, finding new ways of getting robots to do the work once handled by employees. In 2014, the company began rolling out robots to its warehouses using machines originally developed by Kiva Systems, a company Amazon bought for $775 million two years earlier and renamed Amazon Robotics. Amazon now has more than 100,000 robots in action around the world, and it has plans to add many more to the mix.

6) On one edge of the cage, a group of human workers — the “stowers” — stuff products onto the shelves, replenishing their inventory. The robots whisk those shelves away and when a customer order arrives for products stored on their backs, they queue up at stations on another edge of the cage like cars waiting to go through a toll both.

7) There, human “pickers” follow instructions on computer screens, grabbing items off the shelves and putting them in plastic bins, which then disappear on conveyor belts destined for “packers,” people who put the products in cardboard boxes bound for customers.

8) Companies are looking for ways to keep employees safer, extend their workers’ longevity, and reduce the costs associated with injury risk,” says Santagate, IDC’s service robotics research director. This will also help companies more effectively deal with issues like the rising costs of hiring and training employees, both of which can be lessened when you reduce the frequency of work-related injuries—which, in turn, lead to more days off.

9) Much has changed since then with both customer expectations and technology. The elimination of walk and travel time, while still a key component in evaluating automated solutions, is not necessarily the driving criteria. Today’s distribution centrs (DCs) and fulfillment centers (FCs) need to add flexibility, scalability and reduced reliance on temporary or unreliable labour pools to meet their operational requirements.

10) With the recent evolution of goods-to-person and robotic order fulfillment technology, your operation may be in a better position to incorporate these automated solutions now than in the past. In many cases, the implementation of automation to reduce or improve the leverage of labour is a key driver now. In addition, many new automated solutions can be obtained at a lower capital investment and be expanded as needed, which reduces the initial investment and improves the overall return on investment.